In September, I wrote about the Boy Scouts’ plan to convert an old Fort Snelling building into an urban base camp, and in the process, ending a failed development venture by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. The day before Thanksgiving, the Boy Scouts’ Northern Star Council closed on the first half of the deal, paying $2 million for the old cavalry building and parking lot, the council’s scout executive, John Andrews, told me today.

Purchase of the second half of the deal, an adjacent vacant lot, is scheduled for early next year, Andrews said. He expects construction of the complex, which will use the brick edifice as a multipurpose recreational and activity space, to begin in the fall of 2009.

“It’s a big deal, a big risk in these economic times,” Andrews said. Still, he said, “you got to take care of kids.”

The park board’s unfulfilled plans to turn into the old building into a hockey practice facility and then a skateboard park consumed at least $3 million, according to its estimate, although a watchdog group calculated that it was more like $4 million. With that investment, the park board would essentially break even when both parts of the land deal are done.

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